The many smartphone applications out there in the market have failed to help female users in matters of conception or prophylaxis.

To depend on an app with blind trust regarding getting (or not getting) pregnant is a fool’s errand. Such apps are not as reliable as they are made out to be. The study involved 100 fertility awareness apps. Most of them were not so trustworthy since they did not take all the factors into cognizance.

This study was published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

It was a research effort led by several scientists. The joint initiative revealed that many women took pride in relying solely on apps for their reproductive freedom.

Whether they wanted to have a baby or delay conception via contraceptive methods, apps were the way to go. Yet this common sense has proved to be quite flawed in its premises.

The fertility awareness-based methods (FABMs) require the females to follow certain strict guidelines. While apps do help in the process, only very few of them have their act together as far as all the FABMs are concerned.

The effectiveness of these apps is heavily dependent on noting down the FABMs on an intensive basis. The level of observation required is razor sharp.

Most people cannot take each and every factor into account and so here the app fails whether it is due to human frailty or technological glitches. Over 95 apps were looked into.

They were found on iTunes, Google or Google Play. Almost 55 of them had to be discarded from the list since they either gave a warning regarding their usage or didn’t employ any FABMs. That left behind 40 apps which were then graded into various echelons with regard to their efficiency and quality.

The rating scale was taken from Family Practice Management. The apps were slotted in accordance with a five point scale. There were all in all ten criteria that the analysis took into consideration.

At least 30 apps predicted the days of fertility with accuracy whereas 10 didn’t. A total of half a dozen apps were very accurate thus whittling the number down even more so than before.

Women needed to take lessons from an expert in order to predict their fertile and infertile days. The apps alone were not capable of helping females plan their conception or non-conception in a rational way.